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Squid Game didn't invent its style of deadly competitive hijinks, which was first popularized way back in 2000 in Kinji Fukasaku's kids-killing-kids action fest Battle Royale, but it's certainly been smarter and sharper in its social satire, as well as buzzier: toys, games, Halloween costumes, and more have all sprung from the Squid Game font. (Interesting that we can't even enjoy a brutal takedown of late-stage capitalism without running out to buy some merch.)
With Squid Game currently at an end (at least until the potential David Fincher-led reboot), and with a year or so to go until the next Hunger Games movie, you might be on the hunt for a new high-stakes obsession. Here are 10 possibilities. (Just try to enjoy them while they're fictional: The United States Department of Homeland Security is reportedly considering an immigration reality show in which refugees would compete for green cards, so we're already rather impressively close to a real-life Squid Game.)
The 8 Show (2024, miniseries)
A premise that might have seemed excessively on-the-nose a decade ago now looks like a reasonably good distillation of our current capitalist hellscape—and generally, South Korean TV shows and movies have been ahead of the curve when it comes to addressing the exploitative nature of late-stage capitalism. Here, eight strangers are selected to compete in a game in which they're locked together in a building and sequestered on different floors each night. They earn money for each minute they last in the game, but all their provisions must be purchased with money they've won, at an extreme markup. At first, the contestants pool their resources so that everyone gets more money—until they learn that people on higher floors are getting more. Then things get nasty. You can stream The 8 Show on Netflix.
3% (2016 – 2020, four seasons)
It would be tempting to see this as a metaphor for the American dream but, of course, it’s a Brazilian show, and it’s not as though inequality was invented in the United States—we’re just particularly good at it. In 3%, the impoverished young Inlanders have one shot at success: completing “The Process,” a series of interviews, puzzles, and escape rooms designed to test their worthiness to join a futuristic offshore utopia. Most fail, and many don’t survive, leaving a success rate of...3%. This is very much Hunger Games territory, but the show has a darker, more adult edge. It also has four seasons in which to develop its characters and mythology, allowing it to dig a bit deeper than some of its YA contemporaries. You can stream 3% on Netflix.
Panic (2021, miniseries)
There’s a lot here that’s familiar. A group of teens from a small Texas town compete in the annual competition of the title—a host of TV-attractive teenagers competing in a series of dangerous stunts. The primary innovation, as in the Lauren Oliver novel on which the show is based (she’s also the writer and show runner) are the stakes: They’re atypically low, and that's very much the point. Most of the other shows and movies on this list built tension by dangling dramatically big prizes before starry-eyed contestants. Here, the winner gets just $50,000 for engaging in a series of life-threatening stunts—indeed, as the series opens, two people had died the previous year, and the current year’s Panic won’t be without casualties. It’s good money, but it’s not exactly going to set anyone up for life, and it’s not nearly enough to inspire the town’s better-situated kids to get involved. For some, it represents a shot at moving out of town, or going to college—dreams well beyond most of the participants. While the richer kids kids go about their lives, the poor kids fight over scraps. You can stream Panic on Prime Video.
All of Us Are Dead (2022 – , renewed for a second season)
Stepping away from the "deadly games" genre, All of Us Are Dead is, instead, a zombie thriller. Here, high school is hell, almost literally, as a viral outbreak sees a school become ground zero for a strange plague. Though it's not clear at first, the teenagers soon realize that they've been quarantined from the rest of the city. Help isn't coming. Nihilism isn't uncommon in zombie narratives, nor are themes involving the breakdown of social structures. All of Us Are Dead, instead, explores the world of a cloistered high school under constant threat as a parallel to our own world: Class and background continue to be potent forces, even (or especially) amid the trauma of the attacks, and arbitrary social hierarchies solidify under the constant trauma rather than adapt. The closed school location is brilliantly utilized, and there's some appropriately soapy drama, as well. Look for Squid Game's Emmy-winner Lee Yoo-mi as spoiled rich kid Lee Na-yeon. You can stream All of Us Are Dead on Netflix.
The Wilds (2020 – 2022, two seasons)
In a sign of our streaming times, The Wilds was a buzzy, unexpected hit for Prime Video in its first season, only to lose viewership after taking a two-year break. The show works as a YA version of Lost—including a slightly ridiculous scenario involving a plane crash—with characters who get more engaging as the show goes along. Situated between flashbacks and flash-forwards, an airplane full of teenage girls from different places crashes on the way to an empowerment program in Hawaii. It quickly becomes clear that the accident was engineered, and that the whole thing is some sort of social experiment, forcing the survivors to compete against each other for survival. The show’s smart enough to understand the ways in which young women in the real-world are exploited and expected to compete against each other, which grounds the elaborate plot twists. You can stream The Wilds on Prime Video.
Alice in Borderland (2020 – renewed for a third season)
Video-game obsessed Arisu gets his wish, after a fashion, when he finds himself, along with a couple of friends, transported to an alternate, eerily abandoned version of Tokyo—the title’s Borderland—vividly brought to life via some clever green screen work. The three are directed to an arena and given the instructions for the game, which they’ll be playing whether they want to or not. The first competition involves a locked-room-style puzzle; if they fail, the room goes up in flames with them in it—think Ready Player One, with deadlier stakes. There are games each night, though the rules allow for winners to get time off...there are a lot of rules, actually, but the games are cleverly and sadistically constructed. It’s been renewed for a third season, coming in September. You can stream Alice in Borderland on Netflix.
Snowpiercer (2020 – 2024)
Though it initially feels like an unnecessarily extended imitation of Bong Joon Ho's allegorical post-apocalyptic film, the show quickly takes on a life of its own as a clever sci-fi melodrama, smartly recognizing that there are no heroes and few true villains at the end of the world—mostly just people doing whatever they can to survive. In a frozen future (2026 to be precise), humanity survives on an extremely long train that circumnavigates the globe. If it were ever to sop, everyone dies. Those who came aboard with wealth live near the front in relative luxury, while the poor live on scraps in the train's tail. Daveed Diggs stars as former detective Andre Layton, a Tailie deputized by Jennifer Connelly's Melanie Cavill, engineer and the train's Head of Hospitality, to solve a series of murders. The inevitable uprising that follows sees the two of them on different sides of a violent conflict, before each realizes they're being manipulated by others. You can stream Snowpiercer on AMC+ or buy episodes from Prime Video.
The Purge (2018 – 2019, two seasons)
The Purge film series has always projected a high-minded veneer of social allegory over what are, in essence, exploitation-style home invasion thrillers. The series exists in much the same vein, tying in to the movies while also serving as an entry point. Here, we meet former Marine Miguel (Gabriel Chavarria), whose sister Penelope (Jessica Garza) has joined up with a Purge-adjacent cult. Jane (Amanda Warren) is spending the Purge night holed up in her office trying to get some work done for her boss (William Baldwin); a couple of real estate developers are attending a Purge Night gala hoping for an investment from an ultra-wealthy oligarch (Reed Diamond). The disparate stories come together over the course of several episodes that also dig into franchise mythology a little more deeply than in the films. You can stream The Purge on Hulu and Peacock.
Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor (2007 – 2008)
People in deep debt are given the opportunity to play deadly versions of children's games against other players, with the hope of getting enough cash to pay their bills. Sound familiar? Though it's from another country and a different decade, the anime Kaiji is about as close as you're likely to come to Squid Game's brand of darkly satirical thrills. (Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has cited the original manga as an influence.) Kaiji Itō is a gambler who's lost everything when he's approached by a loan shark to participate in a highly secretive offshore gambling event. He'll compete in events, including a lethal version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors," while others gamble on him and his competitors for their amusement. You can stream Kaiji on Crunchyroll and HIDIVE or rent episodes from Prime Video.
Death's Game (2023 – 2024)
Seo In-guk stars as Choi Yee-jae, a young man who gives up on life after years of being unable to find work, eventually resolving to end his own life. Death (Park So-dam) isn't at all impressed by his cavalier attitude—in fact, she's pissed, and sentences him to experience a dozen lives on the brink of death before she drags him to hell. First he's a powerful heir, then a bullied highs school student, then a neglected child, etc. Think Quantum Leap, but with more dying. Experiencing lives (and deaths) through the eyes of others, Yee-jae comes to realize that he'd prefer to live, thank you very much and, further, if he can save the life of anyone he enters, he'll be able to stay. You can stream Death's Game on Prime Video.
Kaiji, The Purge
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